


Meeting in the middle

by benkouji



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Boys Talking, M/M, Sort of fix-it for the season 2 finale, actually talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25108897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benkouji/pseuds/benkouji
Summary: After three months of THAT song, Alex and Michael finally talked. Well, mostly Michael talked, because it was really his turn now.
Relationships: Mention of past Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Very brief mention of Forrest Long/Alex Manes
Comments: 6
Kudos: 101





	Meeting in the middle

Michael was finishing his “self-reflection” of the day, to quote Max, on his journal, when Alex showed up.

He looked astonishingly good. Lighter, and more relaxed, wearing black leather jacket and some tight jeans, hair shorter but obviously styled, eyes kind and sweet, a warm smile on his lips. The sunset was somewhere behind him, so he was illustrated by red and golden rays of the sun. He seemed to be glowing, and Michael couldn’t look away.

They also hadn’t seen each other for almost three months (87 days but who’s counting), so maybe he had every reason to stare at him, hungrily and greedily. And to be fair, Alex was staring right back at him too.

After some time, Alex cleared his throat, shook himself out of it, and sighed, his relaxed demeanor suddenly heavier. “The way you look at me, it never fails to bring me right back to 17.” He laughed bitterly, “Why do you still look at me like that, Guerin? You looked away. You went away.”

Michael felt like he suddenly couldn’t breath around the lump in his throat. He had so many things to say, but the words didn’t come. At last he settled on: “I didn’t look away.”

Alex looked like he was slapped, unbelieving, angry and hurt. So Michael hurried to add: “I tried to, yes. I even THOUGHT I succeeded. But no, the second I knew you were taken, I realized I was fighting a losing battle. Hell, I probably had known it even before that, but I couldn’t let myself admit it.”

Alex still didn’t look convinced. “SHE ended things with you. You practically begged her not to leave you. And you said you loved her.”

“I did love her”, Michael admitted, and God, the hurt on Alex’s face, how did he ever think he could live with that? “But not like the way I love you.”

They both startled at the “love”, but for once, Michael didn’t avoid looking at Alex, he didn’t want to.

“The love I have for you, is not like anything I have felt for anyone. I once told Izzy that it was like crash landing, because it had caused me so much pain in the past I felt like I was burnt and destroyed along the way, but I was also powerless against it because the pull from you was that strong.”

Alex looked heartbroken now, so Michael was failing, again. Why couldn’t he say anything right?

“But now I don’t see it that way. The pull is still so strong I couldn’t fight it if I tried. But I also don’t want to fight it anymore.”

He took a step forward, careful to hold Alex’s gaze.

“Loving you is not like crash landing. It’s like coming home. But the road was very bumpy and the concept of home was very foreign, I was so afraid that I blamed myself for having hope and being naive, and I blamed it on you, on your family. I hid behind my anger so I didn’t need to admit that I was just too afraid to take a chance on us again. I grasped at my relationship with Maria because it was the only thing I could bury myself into, so I didn’t have to look at my mistake of letting you go.”

“But then she ended things. I didn’t have a hiding spot anymore. And you sang that song...”

“During which you walked out.” The way Alex sounded, not even angry, but tired, it broke Michael.

“Because I didn’t have what it took to meet you in the middle!” He half shouted, frustrated and with so much regret. 

Alex took a calming exhale, he was always better at controlling himself than Michael. “What does that even mean? What do you need to have to meet me in the middle? You just have to show up and be there!” He was raising his voice halfway through, his calm slipping.

Michael shook his head. “Alex, I just got out of a relationship. I was a mess. I drank almost daily, I didn’t know where my life was headed other than protecting myself and my siblings from being locked up and experimented on, which is not exactly a promising life goal. I didn’t even know what I want from you, from us.”

If anything, Alex just got angrier. “So what, you just decided, on both our behalf, that you should simply walk away? Don’t I get a say in this? Couldn’t you just say all these things to me then? I could’ve told you what an idiot you were being right there!”

“No, I couldn’t.” It was the wrong thing to say, Michael knew, he didn’t even need to look at Alex’s hurt look to know this. But it was the truth. “I couldn’t say it back then, because I didn’t KNOW it myself at that time. Like when you were walking away from me, you couldn’t say the things in your song back then too.”

Alex froze. But the anger left him all at once.

“This was what I meant by not having what it took to meet you in the middle. Because I didn’t know where the middle was, or how I was gonna get there”, he took a deep breath, but whatever needed to be said, he would say it, no matter how hard it was, “and to be totally honest, I didn’t know if I wanted to get there.”

Alex took a step back. Michael followed him instantly.

“But now I do. Alex, I’m still figuring things out, but the thing with you, I’m now sure of it.”

“But how?” He was quiet now, the fight seemingly left him, “What’s different now?”

“I have been thinking”, at that, Alex snorted. Michael rushed forward, wanting Alex to see, to UNDERSTAND. “Really, Alex. All my life, I was pushed around by so many things coming at me, I couldn’t think clearly, I just acted and reacted. Sometimes it was necessary to survive, other times it led me to horrible judgement and mistake. I needed to take my time to really think, so I don’t make another mistake to you.”

He grabbed his journal then. “I even began to write Journals, Alex. I cut back my drinking, I talked to someone regularly, I...I even went to a meditation session with Rosa and Izzy that one time!”

He breathed deeply to calm himself down, but the tears were coming so he squeezed his eyes shut.

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you then, Alex, I really am. But I simply didn’t have the ability to talk about it. I didn’t have the words. Shit, if not for the journal, I maybe still don’t have the words, even if I know it now. I know that you’re it for me, simple as that.”

Alex’s hands were so warm and soft he leaned into them helplessly before he knew they were wiping his tears.

He opened his eyes, and Alex stood in front of him, very near, but the sad smile was also very clear. Michael’s heart sank.

“I came here today to tell you I’m being relocated.”

Now his heart stopped beating all together.

Alex looked down. “It’s a training program. I can’t tell you where, but it lasts three months.”

Michael felt like he could breath again. He asked, tentatively, “Then?”

“Then”, Alex said, “I get to decide whether I want to stay there or come back here.”

He looked up again, directly into Michael’s eyes. “I broke up things with Forrest because I don’t want him to wait for me on a possibility. I came here because I wanted an answer to help me decide in three months.”

Michael wanted to beg, he wanted to scream, his whole being was chanting “come back, come back, please come back to me”. But he still couldn’t say it. Three months, all for nothing.

But Alex reached out and held his hand. “Would YOU want to wait for me on a possibility?”

So this was what meeting in the middle meant, and it felt fucking fantastic.

Michael replied with all he’s got, he was never so sure about anything before in his whole life.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is SO dialogue heavy I think I might be a little compensating. But I just want them to TALK ok?


End file.
